The top companies hiring for work-from-anywhere-in-the-world roles

If you’ve ever dreamed of ditching office life for good and working from the comfort of your home — or the beach — you’re in good company. As of 2017, 3.4 million U.S. employees primarily worked from home, according to the most recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and that number has likely increased in the years since.

For those interested in a remote work arrangement, it’s worth knowing that the vast majority, 95%, still have a location requirement, according to FlexJobs, a listing site for remote jobs.

These requirements — whether it’s a specific city, state or region of the country — could be in place so the worker can visit the employer’s office for in-person meetings, to facilitate timely communication within a certain time zone, or to abide by employment tax law requirements.

That means, for workers who want a truly location-agnostic job, just 5% of remote opportunities don’t have a location requirement.

A job seeker’s best bet for landing a work-from-anywhere job is to first identify companies who are completely remote, says Brie Weiler Reynolds, career development manager and coach at FlexJobs. These organizations operate without a physical office or headquarters and rely on a suite of digital collaboration tools (think: online messaging, videoconferencing, document sharing, project management programs) to function.

FlexJobs recently identified the top companies in their database that posted the most work-from-anywhere job listings in 2019. The organizations span a range of sizes and industries, Reynolds tells CNBC Make It, but those with a focus in certain areas, including computers and IT, writing and editing, project management, marketing, software development and education, tend to fare best in a remote structure.

“It’s a common assumption that this type of job must be a freelance or contract role, but the vast majority of work-from-anywhere jobs on our site, over 75%, are employee roles,” Reynolds adds.

Job seekers interested in these roles should highlight skills that demonstrate strong communication and teamwork skills, as well as comfort with technology, and any previous remote work experience.

“Even if the company doesn’t have something open in your field, you might consider reaching out to their HR team or even the CEO if it’s a smaller company, and introducing yourself,” Reynolds says. “Tell them how you can help their company in particular, and ask them to keep you in mind for future hiring needs in your line of work.”

Here are the top companies that are hiring people to work from anywhere in the world.

GitLab is an open-source coding platform that allows users to review, generate, analyze and implement code into a consolidated user interface. GitLab is used by organizations such as NASA, Sony, Verizon and Expedia.

Sample jobs: support operations manager, vice president of infrastructure, director of global field marketing

Welocalize provides translation services in e-learning content, product manuals, web content, user interfaces, enterprise applications and multilingual staffing needs for companies such as Disney, Dell and Intuit.

Sample jobs: language translator

The nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia is called the Wikimedia Foundation, which aims to distribute free, multilingual content around the world. Employees work across business development, computer and IT, editing, entertainment and media, and software development.

Sample jobs: senior software engineer; senior UX designer; director of global diversity, equity and inclusion

A job search engine, Toptal connects companies with freelance software developers, designer, finance experts, product managers and project managers.

Sample jobs: senior corporate counsel, growth product manager, senior brand manager

Zapier provides a web-application automation service to link apps such as Gmail, Salesforce, Evernote and Trello and streamline workflows. Clients include Buzzfeed, Spotify, Groupon and Columbia University.

Sample jobs: business operations, marketing manager, senior art director

Elastic.co is an open-source search ecosystem that builds self-managed and software-as-a-service solutions to gather data for analytics, logging, searching and security purposes.

Sample jobs: curriculum designer, director of product marketing, training coordinator

A computer software company, Percona provides support and services to users of databases MySQL and MongoDB, which streamline databases and improve work done across cloud-based and traditional programming platforms. Percona offers consulting in performance optimization, infrastructure architecture and design, and server and database automation.

Sample jobs: customer success manager, backend software engineer, senior visual designer

A web design and online marketing agency, Coalition Technologies provides services such as user experience strategy, search engine optimization, email marketing and social media marketing. Clients include Zumba and Harvard University.

Sample jobs: email marketing specialist, WordPress developer, digital producer

Achieve Test Prep is a provider of test preparation and college consulting services to adults and parents of college-bound children. Students can practice standardized testing and receive college credit as a result of passing test-out exams, clinical assessments and state exams. Classes are taught on nearly 70 U.S. campuses or online.

Sample jobs: sales support manager, degree planning specialist, customer retention manager